Herbert Adams Gibbons

“ If millions upon millions of Americans are ignorant of or indignantly reject the bases of Anglo-Saxon solidarity lovingly dwelt upon by tercentenary orators and writers, what are we going to do about it? We cannot tell Hans Schmidt, Giuseppe Tommasi, Abram Einstein, Olaf Andersen, Robert Emmet O'Brien, and a dozen others that they are not good Americans because they do not cheerfully accept the supremacy of the Scotch and English among us and the superiority of Scotch and English ways. ”

“ Without the invasion of Belgium, the cabinet would have had difficulty in getting Parliament to declare war. Without the constant effort to arouse and maintain the people in a state of moral indignation, which was never relaxed during the four years of fighting, the people of the British Empire would not have furnished millions of soldiers. We Anglo-Saxons are instinctively anti-militaristic, and we loathe war. We accept the burden of war only as a last resort, when we are driven to it. In a certain sense the United States was kicked into the war. ”

“ If we want to make Anglo-Saxon solidarity a national policy instead of a group cult, we shall have to find an appeal to the American public different from that of the orators and writers who speak in these days of our ancestors, our common blood, our precious Anglo-Saxon heritage. ”

“ A sense of justice and an ability to put oneself in the other man's place are the Anglo-Saxon qualities par excellence. Being of pure British blood myself, I cannot help looking with contempt upon parvenus who are plus royalistes que le roi. The American of German or Irish origin who speaks and works for Anglo-Saxon race supremacy is a strange creature. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem" is sacred to the decent-minded man. ”

“ As an Anglo-Saxon American, whose deepest interest is in the solidarity of the English-speaking world, I want to raise my voice against the tactless and platitudinous type of article and speech one reads and hears everywhere in connection with the Pilgrim tercentenary. In my childhood, when the kitchen happened to run out of cereals or milk, the cook used to give us a dish of bread or flour and water with a liberal sprinkling of sugar to disguise its origin. To make children take "pap," everything depends upon the sugar. ”

“ The United States as a whole does not possess an Anglo-Saxon racial or cultural consciousness. But, despite our mixture of blood and cultural background, successive generations of development under Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and polity have given us an idealism that is distinctively Anglo-Saxon. It was slow to awaken, but when it did awake, the people of this country, irrespective of origin, went into the war for the triumph of the ideals embodied by President Wilson in his war speeches. ”

“ The greatness of the United States in the third decade of the twentieth century is due to the combined aid of several different elements of her population, and it is certain that we could not have dispensed with either the German or the Irish element. And these elements are so numerous and so powerful in wealth and political influence that it is inexpedient—to use a mild word—to ignore or affront them in our tercentenary writing and speaking. It does not help the cause of Anglo-Saxon solidarity for a tercentenary orator to denounce the German-Americans and the Irish-Americans. ”

“ I think I have proved that the elements of our population which are not Anglo-Saxon do not take much stock in Anglo-American community of blood and culture and history because they are not bases to them. Their blood is not ours, their culture is different, and American history gives them ground for antagonism to the British rather than sympathy with the British. ”

“ More important still, during the war, there were times when we realized that Anglo-Saxondom was threatened with an eclipse of glory and influence. A thing is never so precious as when you are faced with losing it. ”

“ The man who attends Pilgrim dinners and celebrations goes home with the comfortable feeling that Anglo-Saxon solidarity is stronger than ever. It is a physical reaction from the food and lights and flowers and music and women, not a mental reaction from the speakers. Satisfied and reassured, the tercentenary celebrant thinks he has done all that is necessary to maintain and strengthen the bonds of friendship and good understanding between the English-speaking nations. ”

“ We Anglo-Saxons cannot expect to denounce Ireland and even Germany and affirm our affection for and championship of England on the ground of blood relationship, as is being done in almost every tercentenary celebration, and expect our right to speak for the United States not to be contested. ”

“ But on another American correspondent who was not of Anglo-Saxon origin this incident made no impression, and he did not follow me in prizing the heritage. "Language is a lucky convenience," he admitted, "but the English are foreigners to me. I feel nothing in common with them, nothing at all." He went on to say that he regarded the British as a more dangerous enemy than the Germans, and that our next war would be with them. My friend was a high-minded and intelligent American who had been to school in England and also in France. ”

“ We might dismiss the tercentenary disappointment with a simple expression of regret over the great opportunity missed, were it not for the strong feeling that the loving-cup and patting-ourselves-mutually-on-the-back performances are positively harmful to Anglo-Saxon solidarity. They have the effect of a soporific to American believers in Anglo-Saxon solidarity and of a stimulant to the enemies among Americans of friendship with Great Britain. ”

“ The World War and its aftermath make inevitable raising these questions. But those who, like myself, believe that the political and economic rapprochement of Anglo-Saxon countries is a possibility that ought to be carefully considered, will fail of appreciable results unless we are willing to discuss moot questions frankly and with detachment in good old Anglo-Saxon fashion and unless we realize the composite racial and cultural character of the American nation. ”

“ We are not going to get anywhere in our propaganda for Anglo-Saxon solidarity unless we emphasize the common idealism and strive to make the association of Anglo-Saxon nations a committee for giving Anglo-Saxon liberties to the whole world. ”

“ Thousands of flourishing communities exist in the United States, nurseries of splendid Americans, where the new generation is being brought up with traditions and customs and mental habits very different from those of Anglo-Saxons. From Scandinavians to Italians, elements of continental European origin are not giving up their culture for Anglo-Saxon culture. ”

“ In regard to Germany, Great Britain has acted admirably, and is living up to her ideals of fair play and of not kicking the other fellow when he is down. In regard to Ireland, on the other hand, we have a question that must be settled before genuine good feeling is established among the Anglo-Saxon states. Speaking for Ireland and not against her is the highest wisdom for the Anglo-Saxon propagandist in the United States. ”

“ Our British hosts are assured that history text-books have been responsible for much of our misunderstanding of the British, and that when we have remedied the way the War of Independence and the War of 1812 and the British attitude in the Civil War were presented to American children, a desire to twist the lion's tail will remain in this country only among Germans and Irish. ”

“ Dear me! do we need to be taught that our house is not in order by having it, figuratively at least, pulled down around our ears? Politicians and professors and publicists must call a halt on their flood of complaint and denunciation and warning. ”

“ The years immediately ahead are years of great peril for Anglo-Saxon solidarity. The problems we must face and solve go so far beyond the matters dealt with by tercentenary orators that one feels the crying need of light and more light in considering the quadrangular character of relations between the different parts of Anglo-Saxondom—Great Britain, self-governing dominions, the United States, and the possessions and protectorates British and American. Japan? The Pacific? Tariffs and shipping? Sea-power? Status of the Near East and the German colonies? ”

“ For the sake of idealism and for the United States they fought against kith and kin, or alongside of those they believed, rightly or wrongly, to be the oppressors of their race. But can we expect our compatriots of German or Irish or Slavic origin to support a European and world order based upon the permanent inferiority and subjection of the races from which they sprang? ”

“ The old order upon which one could count in directing foreign affairs has given place to new and uncertain values. Just what the changes are, whether for good or bad, whether permanent or temporary, and how we are to adjust ourselves to them and take advantage of them or combat them, as the case may be, on all this we read little that is constructive. ”

“ It is becoming a factor in our relations with Australia, also, because Australians read widely and with avidity popular American literature. But outside of a limited circle, which needs no conversion to Anglo-Saxon solidarity, few British and Americans come into personal contact, and the reciprocal purchase of books and magazines and newspapers is surprisingly small. Potentially, however, common language is a basis of solidarity. It is an asset in favor of those who are working to bring the English-speaking peoples together. ”

“ Insisting that they foul their own nests is a poor test for recruits to Anglo-Saxon solidarity. Americans who maintain that it is our duty as good citizens of the United States to work for, or at least not to speak against, the material advancement of Great Britain because of kinship are appealing to a racial group and are as guilty of hyphenism as the propagandists of any other racial group. ”

“ A formidable number of millions of Americans who fought Germany without hesitation because Germany stood for militarism and autocracy and imperialism do not believe they are called upon to sanction and enforce a sordid materialistic peace that makes some races masters of others. ”

“ When we fought the mother country it was to preserve our rights as Englishmen, which we did not believe had been forfeited by transplantation. The American War of Independence was a struggle to establish a principle that has been vital in the development of English-speaking countries. ”

“ Canada and South Africa have important Caucasian elements that have not been under the influence of, and are antipathetic to, Anglo-Saxon culture. Australia's Irish rival ours in singing the hymn of hate against England. ”

“ Statesmen may still be sitting at the diplomatic chessboard, making moves in accordance with the old rules of the game. But each realizes that shaping the foreign policy of his nation is no longer independent of or divorced from home policies and problems. ”

“ They offer the greatest protection to the individual man and the widest possibility of individual freedom the world has ever known. Within recent years, if America meant to the immigrant "the home of the free," it was because of the scrupulous administration of justice according to the laws handed down to us by our Anglo-Saxon forebears. Similarly, the immigrant of continental European origin who went to a British colony was sure of a "square deal." Before the law he was the equal of any other man. ”

“ If it means traditions and customs and mental habits as embodied in our literature and preserved in our family life, we shall find many other American elements than the German unwilling to abandon for our culture what they brought here from the Old World. ”

“ Still, it is possible to combine constructive thinking with complimentary references to past and present, especially when we consider that tercentenary celebrations draw thoughtful, earnest people, who do not have to be treated like a movie audience or a campaign gathering. ”

“ The earlier English history they did not share. Other grounds must be sought to convince the American nation that it is a part of Anglo-Saxondom and should work for the union and prosperity of Anglo-Saxondom. The only cultural basis that has a wider appeal than simply to one of several American groups is the question of common language. ”

“ Prophets are alarmists, and critics keep telling us what we know, that our statesmen are making a mess of things internationally and that we are badly off internally because legislators and executives are passive in the face of high prices and social unrest. ”

“ But when we see the same methods applied to the presentation of a question of permanent interest and importance, and applied by men who both know better and have not the defense of electoral anxiety and expediency, it is time to protest. ”